Tag: breast cancer

A valiant fight! A wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a granddaughter, a niece, an animal lover, a friend to many.

Her grandfather, Robert E. Van Sickle, was my mother’s brother.

As Aunt Nancy VS put it so well, ” a sad day for our family.”

When you hear the term”battle” in reference to cancer, Lori Lynn Baur Meli exemplified the definition. Despite metastaticbreast cancer, Lori planned each day of her life to the fullest. She sent us recordings of her singing a hymn or a Christmas song, always creative and musical. She and her husband Fredi went on her dream trip to Hawaii returning just Feb 7th.

They came through Pittsburgh last May and here’s the photo I took of them in Ritter’s Diner that night. It was right before she got to be honorary bat girl for the Yankees so it’s nice you can see the print on her shirt. She loved the Yankees. Especially Jeter. She called and asked if a newspaper could use the photo for a story about her and another one of the pictures from that night was in a show in the 1650 Gallery in Los Angeles last summer. Lori was pleased with the images so I felt pleased, too. And she made sure I got the photo credits in the paper and sent the hard copies to me in an envelope. Despite her diagnosis she was determined to live as long as possible, which is exactly what she did! She had a plan. Always. I will remember her first time in the batting cages in Connecticut a few years ago. She touched a lot of people. Here is an excerpt from her online journal– “Love really is everything. There IS nothing else. We have to let go off the other crap to begin to live in love and light, every day of our lives.” Her friend Jennifer pulled this clip- youtube video of Lori telling her own story.

A Bright Life Well Lived

Lori Lynn Baur Meli
A tribute.
She made the most
of the time she was given.